In the letter, Anthropic’s founders urge prospective stock owners “not to think of your purchase in purely transactional terms. We hope you will see it instead as an opportunity to be part of something greater.” The march toward advanced AI “is one of the seminal moments in human history,” the letter says. “Our aim is to help humankind chart a safe course through this technological evolution, open new frontiers of discovery, and bring forth an age of miracles.” But the S-1 warns that if things go wrong, the consequences could be disastrous — even an “existential” risk to humanity. Many dangers are laid out in exhaustive detail, including risks that models “behave in ways that no user or developer intended,” leading to “catastrophic” incidents that the entire insurance industry couldn’t afford to underwrite.
